Quicksilva thoughts...

Robots in the surgery theatre. Good news if you have knee osteoarthritis.

The future has arrived for knee osteoarthritis treatment allowing you to limp into the hospital for your knee surgery, get your implants implanted, and walk out again… in the same day.

In much the same way as a machine can engrave a design once programmed, a robotic arm has been developed that augments the handiwork of the surgeon, by preventing any accidental damage being applied to the precious healthy knee structure, and restricts the drilling and resurfacing to the unhealthy area only.

With sight correction laser procedures already common in our health sphere, this is another example of how mans’ biological quality of life is being enhanced by direct machine involvement which relies on computing processes.

With bionics already science fact and improving all the while, and the invention of this robotic surgical arm, could some version of the Star Trek: Voyager doctor, the Emergency Medical Hologram (EMH), become science fact quicker than we imagine?

Quicksilva thoughts...

Nearly three-quarters of the top 100 sites on the web host malicious code or redirect users to malicious sites, according to new research from content security provider Websense.

If browsing a government website and a link reveals a man and woman doing not very parliamentary things, then this site has certainly been link-spammed. Spammers are becoming more intelligent in manipulating the content we view on the internet, though the process relies on phishing for information and users lack of awareness. As demonstrated by a skin cancer charity campaign offering software upgrades allowing PC monitors to tan you, if there is a link, we will follow it.

It's usually easy to spot spam, especially when a nice Nigerian chap offers you £500,000 in unclaimed African tax money. However if a government website that has been maliciously hacked, forwarded you to a page appearing to be the Inland Revenue where the taxman requests your banking details in order to deposit your rebate, you are far more likely to proceed.

Always use different passwords for online access, sounds simple but can be overlooked when trying to remember those different $,?,@, characters used to spell your mums first pet’s favourite film.

Quicksilva thoughts...

The safety of electronic data has been a hot topic over the last few months and it seems the inauguration of a new U.S. president has managed to contribute to the debate.

I am astonished that with the level of commercial and sensitive data exchanged electronically in this modern era, that the U.S. government is only now acting on recommendations to improve cyber security. Governments should ensure the safety of their citizen's data but to date, it seems the U.S. government has been exploiting badly protected networks to snoop on its own citizens.

The Obama cyber security review is a welcome step in the right direction, but the loss of staggering amounts of commercially sensitive data to China can only be addressed by corporations taking equal responsibility when it comes to protecting data. Until cyber security is taken seriously by all those that handle sensitive data electronically, it is hard to see how cyber crime will be reduced.

Quicksilva thoughts...

As we all face the challenge of remaining active and healthy as we grow olde, the government faces the challenge of how to deliver and fund a service that caters for an ever aging population without confusing us all with more acronyms!

The Assisted Living Innovation Platform (ALIP) has 9 research projects of which the VIRTEx is one.

A virtual community of local carers seems to be the answer the government is pinning its hopes and our monies on but why just stick to local?

They are clearly not thinking big enough. What we need is a community of virtual carers so that we can be treated wherever we are and whatever we are doing.

If I fall over on the ski slopes I want to have a consultation there and then so bring on the emergency medical hologram, (EMH) and all will be well.

I know it can be done; I have seen the technology working on Star Trek Voyager.

Maybe I am dreaming... maybe it's dementia... either way take me back to the holodeck (HD) where I can live out my fantasy in peace.

Quicksilva thoughts...

This story highlights how important the internet has become to our society; when information is required the first port of call for many is the World Wide Web. It is increasingly important for those supplying the information, organisations providing the web sites that people turn to, to ensure that information can be quickly obtained at all times, efficiently handling an increase in demand when required.

With this in mind, when planning online systems it is vital to think about how content can be obtained quickly and easily by the end user and how the importance of information to users changes depending on the situation, in this case in response to the external environment. It should no longer be acceptable to simply tell users that your website is too busy - important information that many people are looking for should still be accessible.

The way we perceive and use the internet continues to change dramatically and those providing the content need to change with it. Use of the internet can no longer be considered an aside to an organisation’s main business functions, instead it must be embraced and recognised as the main point of contact many customers have with your business.

The technology exists to provide a friendly, usable online service for customers and potential customers; it just requires the knowledge, and often the imagination, to put it to good use.